


Nameless

by laireshi



Category: Devil May Cry
Genre: Angst, M/M, Mind Manipulation, Torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-20
Updated: 2019-07-20
Packaged: 2020-07-08 23:09:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,470
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19877611
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/laireshi/pseuds/laireshi
Summary: Nelo Angelo, his master calls him, so that must be his name. After all, his master is never wrong. He is a God of his domain, and his word is Law, so the demon called Nelo Angelo never lets himself dwell on the sensation of utter, overwhelming wrongness running through his whole body like an electric current every time he hears the name.





	Nameless

**Author's Note:**

  * For [devilsalwayscry](https://archiveofourown.org/users/devilsalwayscry/gifts).



> For Des, who won the bet and brought suffering upon themselves.
> 
> (mild spoilers for today's Visions of V chapter that you won't even notice if you haven't seen That One Panel)

_Nelo Angelo_ , his master calls him, so that must be his name. After all, his master is never wrong. He is a God of his domain, and his word is Law, so the demon called Nelo Angelo never lets himself dwell on the sensation of utter, overwhelming wrongness running through his whole body like an electric current every time he hears the name. 

_The title_ , he sometimes thinks, a disjointed idea presenting itself to him, but that would mean he doesn’t have a name, and that, somehow, is even worse. He has a name, he _does_ ; he’s not like the hordes of lesser demons his God has at his beck and call, he is better than them, he has a name and it’s _his_ and _only his_ and it’s—

Nelo Angelo.

His hand wraps around the amulet he always wears, given to him by his master as the ultimate symbol of power. He can’t take it off: it makes his heart spasms painfully and his lungs close up when he so much as considers it. It’s what binds him, and yet—sometimes he thinks it doesn’t come from his master at all, that it _is_ his in the way his name isn’t. A treacherous thought that he keeps buried lest his God dig it up and cast his punishment.

A shot of pain like a giant sword bisecting him is his only warning; he drops to his knees as three red orbs materialise in front of him bringing the will of God with them.

“My knight.” The words boom in the small room. The mirror in the corner vibrates with it and so does his skin. “I have a task for you.”

Nelo Angelo bows his head. To serve his master is the greatest honour he’s known. He’ll obey, as he always does, for to question the will of God is an inadmissible blasphemy.

***

Vergil can’t scream.

It’s not because of foolish concepts like pride or not wanting to give Mundus the satisfaction: that had only lasted as long as it took him to shatter the Yamato. Her loss broke something inside Vergil that he hadn’t thought possible to be broken, and he’d howled and wailed in anguish and in grief—

And then he just kept on screaming; each spike of Mundus tearing through his body and spreading poison under his skin eliciting a new scream, each heavy tentacle crushing his bones to powder making him yell, until his voice grew hoarse and then left him altogether.

 _I can still fight_ , he thinks, and if Mundus can read his mind like he suggested then Vergil hopes he hears that. _He can fight_. _He lost the Yamato but he can take her back, he can, he just needs a moment—_

He can’t _see_ anymore, but he can feel something piercing his chest, a sort of cold, alien darkness wrapping itself around his heart.

 _Can_ he still fight?

Hot tears run down his cheeks. There’s a mercy in his voice being gone: he can’t beg for it all to stop.

***

The mission bestowed upon Nelo Angelo was an easy one: to pacify an outer ring of hell. He tore through their ranks finding no worthy opponent, even as he himself feels like he’s too slow—

 _disgraceful_ —

his armour impossibly heavy and constricting around his limbs. It’s a nonsensical idea. His armour _is_ a part of him, just the way his broadsword is an extension of his power. He’s been created in this form, just as other demons were created in theirs, some three-headed and other with blades for arms, and he’s never known any other existence.

He turns to head back, for his God does not value tardiness. Nelo Angelo is to return as soon as his task is done. But as he does so, a reflection of light, too pure for where he is, catches his eye.

Intrigued, he walks to the object. It’s a weapon of a kind, he thinks, with a dark blue, detailed hilt and a broken blade, useless now . . . His knees bend underneath him. He falls to the ground, clutching at his chest, and his mouth is open but the only sound he can produce are weak shrieks. He’s dizzy, the world swirling around him, centring on the blade. He reaches for it, careful, his gauntleted hands unwieldy as he lifts it.

( _He’d lost her; he’s not fit to carry her_.)

He’d never seen something as beautiful before. He runs his fingers over the hilt, wishing against himself he could feel it against his bare skin, his thumb setting on the tsuba in a gesture that’s almost familiar.

Foolishness.

It’s a broken katana, good for nothing; if the steel is good, then maybe it could be reforged into a weapon for another demon, but it’s not any of Nelo Angelo’s concern. He was born with his sword and he needs nothing else. He should throw the katana away and return to his master; he never should’ve even paused for it.

His hands are shaking. His eyes burn. There’s a weird sensation on his face, sliding down his cheeks underneath the helmet that he never takes off.

This katana. It’s not unlike his amulet, which means it’s dangerous in the thoughts it causes him. Everything he is and everything he owns is created by his God. A foreign blade? He must not take it with him. The right course of action would be to break it further now that he’d made the mistake of picking it up.

He _can’t_.

A secret is inconceivable. A secret brings worse than death: his master’s ire. A secret is a concept he shouldn’t know.

It’s a long time before he stands up, and he brings her with him.

***

Nelo Angelo means to hide the katana somewhere safe, but _nowhere_ is safe from his God’s omniscient presence, and so he keeps it on his body at all times, hoping against reason he won’t be found out.

(It’s not because when he tried to put it away, he couldn’t; it’s only logical to keep it near if it could be used against him otherwise.)

He reports back, and his God looks down upon him in judgemental silence.

“Are you not as strong as I thought?” he asks. “Were the rebels too powerful, to have taken that much of your time?”

Nelo kneels in silence. He’s never been granted a voice, and so he cannot lie. Lies or honesty, it matters not: he has been late. His God’s energy surrounds him in a black sphere.

He screams, wordlessly as ever, and the blackness tears inside his throat and spreads over his body like a corruption— _a blessing, it’s a blessing_ _to touch his God even in this way_ —until unconsciousness takes him.

***

His name is Vergil, _Vergil Vergil Vergil_ , Son of Sparda, and he won’t obey Mundus, not _ever_.

There are chains on his legs, holding them apart, chains on his arms, pulling on them so strongly Vergil’s almost surprised they haven’t simply torn his arms off, chains around his stomach, squeezing him so tight his ribs crack, chains on his neck, making breathing all but impossible—

“What would your father think, Son of Sparda?”

Mundus doesn’t need to ask: Vergil’s thinking about it himself during the rare moments of reprieve when he can focus on something other than pain. He’s a disappointment, a failure, a mistake.

“You don’t deserve this title. You’re not his son. You’re no one. You don’t need this anymore.” A black tentacle reaches for Vergil. He flinches, but it’s not his body it seeks: it wraps itself around the chain of his amulet, and it _snaps it_ and takes it _away_ , the last memento of his mother he has.

It’s almost worse than losing the Yamato was. He wants to yell, but he can’t; he wants to reach for it, but the chains hold him back; he wants to cry, but he’s long out of tears. His body has stopped healing eons ago; his clothes have been reduced to rags and then to nothing. The chains dig into his naked skin, blood seeping alongside them, and Vergil repeats his mantra for now he truly has nothing else left.

_His name is Vergil, and he is not broken—_

**_Yet_** , a voice like Mundus’ echoes inside Vergil’s own head.

***

His master’s voice comes without a warning this time, but Nelo Angelo exists to serve him: there is nothing for him to do but await his orders anyway. He cannot be disturbed by being presented with his life’s objective.

“You have a new mission, Nelo Angelo: a demon hunter has attacked us.”

He scoffs. He’s dealt with hunters before: pathetic, weak humans who cannot comprehend who it is they are trying to fight.

“Kill him, and bring me his head,” the God orders, and Nelo Angelo puts his hand over his heart in a voiceless oath.

He leaves to find his prey, and what he finds is curious. This hunter is unlike the others.

He’s stronger, faster; at times like a demon more than a human, an impossible mix, as Nelo Angelo well knows, which means it is magic he’s employing.

He’s still too weak. They all are.

He prepares to deal the final stroke when a pendant slips out of the hunter’s shirt—

Not any pendant, an amulet, one that Nelo knows, _his_ amulet, only silver; the perfect twin to his own gold one . . .

 _Twin_.

He lets the man go. The pain in his head is like nothing his God had ever wreaked upon him.

(His punishment is immediate and devastating; black thorns plunging into his body and his armour might as well be liquid for how it can’t protect him. Fire courses through his veins, fire and ice both, battling for dominance over his body and he can do nothing but bear it.

All things and time itself, too, are under his God’s control: it’s an eternity in an hour before he’s let out again.)

***

Black armour is fitted around his body, heavy and grotesquely big, attaching itself to him with spikes digging under his skin, fusing itself into one being with Vergil.

 _No_.

“You’re my servant,” Mundus declares.

_No no no no never—_

“Kneel and bow before me.”

_No, he’s not, he’s—_

The chestplate is pushed upon him, its fastening going straight through his heart.

Why is he still fighting? He’s lost. Mundus is right. He’s a ser—

 _No he’s not and he’ll never be_ — _he doesn’t know his name but he knows this, he’s not going to kneel in front of Mundus, he’s not, he won’t_ —

A helmet is forced upon his head, cold and heavy.

_No no no no no no no_

_No_

“I reward my servants well,” Mundus promises, and then an amulet is put around his neck, gold and red and familiar and _his_. “What is your name?”

The amulet fully rests on his chest as the chains around him fall away.

He has no voice, but he kneels before his God and thinks with all his strength: _Nelo Angelo_.

***

He loses to the hunter again. He is punished again. He is given another chance: an impossibility he doesn’t understand. There are no second chances in his master's realm, much less third ones. What he does understand is this: this is the last option he has.

He’s Nelo Angelo, his God’s faithful knight, and he’d never let him down before—and he won’t again.

The hunter, though.

He is . . . different. He has the amulet.

Nelo Angelo waits for the hunter, but he knows he has some time before they face off again. He reaches for his own amulet, his fingers too big and too clumsy for how _precious_ it is. He lifts it from his chest to look at it, careful not to break it, and his thoughts catch as his eyes fall on the text.

 _Dante, Vergil_.

Two . . . names?

Why are they familiar? They cannot be. He wishes desperately that in his mercy his master had granted him a voice so that he could read them and taste the sounds they make.

 _Vergil_.

Something ugly and dark wraps itself around his heart, disgust and hatred rolled together. Is it the hunter’s name?

He hears steps. He hides the amulet again. He faces the hunter.

This fight is different. He summons blue swords, the power like a distant memory that presents itself to him, and he has a foolish urge to remove his helmet. He doesn’t: he is the armour and the armour is him, protecting him, keeping him safe like he’s always wanted to be—

The hunter quickly overpowers him, the strikes of his sword too strong, his aim too true while Nelo Angelo . . . cannot hurt him.

He jumps away, to put a distance between them, and realises his problem. This is not the weapon to use against the hunter. He needs something sharper, something sleeker, light and quick and lethal—

He drops his broadsword and he draws the broken, useless katana.

 _I can still fight_.

It remains sharp enough.

But when he faces the hunter again, he finds him pale, his eyes wide, shaking his head as if in disbelief.

Nelo Angelo waits. He won’t strike at a distracted opponent. It is not the honourable way.

( _Demons don’t care about honour._ )

When the hunter moves, it is in a blur of red light and power so great it takes his breath away. He raises his broken weapon to block, but the hunter changes the direction of his hit in the last moment: instead of at his chest, he aims at Nelo Angelo’s helmet.

Nelo Angelo can feel it shattering over his face, falling to the ground in pieces, and he stands frozen and shudders, unable to even _think_ as he looks at the world for the first time without a smudged filter.

The hunter _is_ familiar, like that: white hair almost glowing in the dark, blue eyes like the summer sky that Nelo Angelo had never seen.

“Vergil?” the hunter whispers.

 _Vergil, Dante_ ; the inscription on the twin amulets.

Nelo Angelo collapses at the hunter’s feet, and though his God’s retribution will surely be swift, something else is more important at this moment.

( _Nelo Angelo_ is not a title nor a name, but it is the chains, and the armour, and the broadsword, it is the torture and the enslavement, it is the never-ending nightmare that started with a fall, and the broken man buried underneath it all still has no name, and no title, and nothing to call his own—

the broken katana, it used to be his—

the amulet was given to him a longer time ago than he can remember—

and his twin, he’s _his_ and only _his,_ and the pain his name brings is clear and refreshing, promising freedom.)

“ _Dante_.”

**Author's Note:**

> This fic also has a [twitter post](https://twitter.com/tonytears/status/1152371573212557313).


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